Hell they let me play Silent Hill on the PS1 even before that; they were certainly very lenient on video games...hmm well most of my friends today tend to be people that rather play a good MMO/RTS with me then go out 2 da club or get drunk but I wouldn't say it's been negatively affected for various values of negatively..

Back when I was like 10 I used to play a game called Runescape in which the only method of trading was directly with other people (no longer the case). There would be a few spots where people gathered and one would advertise things for sale. Typing things like "selling steel bars 550 ea" over and over as fast as possible for a few hours a day did the trick lol I can do about 90-100 WPM rather comfortably. A shame that they've ruined the game and made it even worse than it was back then:(

OopsIDied writes: Finbar McGarry is suing the state of Vermont for $11 million after being forced to work washing other inmates' laundry at 25 cents an hour while being held for trial. McGarry claims that prison officers threatened to place him in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day if he refused to work. McGarry was eventually tried, and his charges were dropped.

OopsIDied writes: A senior student at Garrett High School was recently expelled after tweeting profanity (f**k) from his own home. Supposedly the school has a system which tracks students' social networks after they have logged in at school. Although the tweet was done at home at 2 AM, the school decided that such behavior was unacceptable and that the most fitting punishment was expulsion. He did use a school computer, but it was set up to use the school network even when used outside the school because the school claimed the tweet was associated with the school's IP address.

I always wondered, are the speeds of rotation of the moon and Earth so perfectly synced that even after a long time the same side of the moon is facing us? I'd think there might be at least a little speed difference that over the years would cause our view of the moon to shift.

I think an important thing people are overlooking is that not having walled gardens allows curious people to learn a few things. I for one knew just about nothing about technology when I had my first computer back in around 2000 (yes I'm young), but it was very interesting poking around the Math Blaster directory editing files in paint and being like O: this actually changed how things look in the game! Such things are hardly even possible (for people who don't know about extraction methods) in big games even on Windows since they compress everything into a few large binaries, and I'm sure having everything "just work" would dampen a lot of learning. Sure it's nice that things just work but things already seem to be dumbing children down enough with TV and schools as it is...

OopsIDied writes: At a hearing regarding an arctic wildlife refuge, Rep. Don Young claims that the board has made up its mind and argument is futile while calling Doug Brinkley "Mr Rice." An interesting verbal battle ensues. It's good to see some people standing up to what I see as unacceptable rashness and hard mindedness.

When I read the question I already knew what to look for, and I can't believe it was missed lol. $100 gfx card can mean the difference between 7 fps and 100 fps in a game. No (reasonable) amount of RAM or CPU upgrades can do what a single video card upgrade can for gamers.